WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 144: Peep Show Grey (1)

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“Hey.”

The Marine Corporal scowled at a seagull.

“Get lost, you birdbrained whore. Before I shoot you.”

The red-beaked bird was not afraid. Instead of fleeing, it screeched at the human. Kyaaak! Flutter! It was trying to look threatening. Its wings beat out to nearly a meter across. The Corporal stared at it in disbelief, then drew his pistol. Bang! Blood splattered. At that range, he could not miss.

The sky erupted into noise. Startled by the gunshot, the flock of seagulls scattered. A single feather rode the wind toward them. It drifted past Gyeoul’s eyes, then began falling toward the gray sea city.

A murky voice came through the radio.

[Post 1. What happened?]

The Marine Corporal glanced at Gyeoul, then answered.

“Nothing. I only shot one seagull.”

[Shit, don’t make us tense up for no reason.]

“Sorry.”

While the exchange continued, the scattered flock flew back in. Toward their dead kin. Countless seagulls occupied the upper mast of the anchored cargo ship, the CIA operations headquarters.

It was not mourning. It was a feeding frenzy. Red beaks tore the dead seagull apart. Their rough, competing movements shredded flesh and organs. The shrieking was loud enough to hurt. Their wings beat selfishly as they shoved one another away. The mast near the radar was narrow. Dozens perched on it, hundreds circled around it, and all of them fought for a place without pause. They gaped their red beaks and threatened one another.

Human civilization had not fed humans alone. The winged residents of the San Francisco Bay Area had suffered hunger like never before after the plague spread. Hunger gave birth to madness. The birds steeped in madness learned from human madness. At first, they ate the byproducts. Later, they became part of the frenzy. The problem was that the byproducts humans left behind included humans.

“I want to shoot them all dead.”

The Corporal set down the radio and grumbled. Gyeoul knew he would not actually shoot, but stopped him as a formality anyway.

“Don’t, Wolf. You’ll make things harder for the next shift.”

More corpses would draw more scavengers. It would be quiet for the moment, though.

Gyeoul was standing guard with the Marine Corporal. Here, at the temporary post installed high on the mast, they could see the southern half of San Francisco Bay when visibility was good.

‘Will I have to wait a little longer before being put into real missions...?’

Ten days had passed in the time of 「Days after Apocalypse」 since he arrived here. His week-long trial for adjustment had ended, and another three days had passed after that. Still, no external missions had been assigned.

The biggest reason was White Skull itself, the unit Gyeoul now belonged to. Apparently, it had suffered heavy losses during its previous mission. For a while, he would be assigned only to guard and patrol duty.

It had felt strange from the first day. Captain Fowler had observed him all day. A special forces commander taking part in a covert operation should not have had that much free time. It also showed how badly they needed reinforcements.

If anything, that suited him. Patrols and fixed guard duty were chances to build ties with the existing personnel. Command had paired him off with them for that very reason. A new stage, new people. Gyeoul was getting to know them one by one. Corporal Dwayne Wolf beside him now was one of them.

“Look. Those guerrilla bastards are holding another public execution. That’s already the third one today.”

The Corporal pointed south. Gyeoul raised his binoculars. The first thing he saw was the flock of birds. Perhaps they sensed a feast, because they flew low. Beneath them, a bloodstained deck was red. So were the people about to die. The signs of torture were plain. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Armed Black fighters forced the condemned to kneel. Spit flew from the mouths of those facing death. Their voices did not carry this far. It was hard to read their lips too.

No one gave them the mercy of a blindfold. The executioners did not use guns either. They simply cut their bellies open with knives. There was no solemnity, no tragic resolve, no madness. It was closer to everyday butchery. The victims shuddered while still alive. The dark-skinned executioners shoved their hands into the condemned people’s bellies and scraped out their guts. They flung them out in strips. The flock of birds poured down.

That was why Gyeoul had not stopped Corporal Wolf from shooting the seagull.

“Do you think their claims are true?”

At Gyeoul’s question, the Corporal snorted.

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. True or not, nothing justifies insane shit like that. Criminal bastards worse than the Taliban. We should kill them all.”

Contempt dripped from his words.

Black Guerrilla. That was what the armed Black people called themselves.

Gyeoul had once heard their statement broadcast on a pirate frequency.

Their justification for the executions was revenge. They claimed racial discrimination had taken place during San Francisco’s evacuation. Disaster authorities had prioritized evacuating wealthy white people, leaving poor Black people behind.

That was why their victims were usually white. It was not a rule they always followed. Other races were often sacrificed too. One of the people who had just died was Black.

Grrrgle. The sound of intestines twisting with stomach pain. When Gyeoul turned around, Corporal Wolf was rubbing his stomach. As Gyeoul looked at him, he blushed in embarrassment.

“Sorry. Maybe my blood pressure spiked, but nature is suddenly calling. This has never happened before.”

“Go ahead. What could happen in just a moment?”

“Uh... I don’t think it’ll be just a moment.”

“It can’t be helped. It’s a rare chance, after all.”

The Corporal looked even more embarrassed in front of Gyeoul’s smile. Still, he did not refuse. “I’ll hurry back,” he said, then climbed onto the ladder leading down. He slid so quickly it looked dangerous.

He had constipation. He had never said so himself, but his comrades teased him mercilessly about it. “Wolf. How long are you going to keep being a picky eater?” They had done it several times even in front of Gyeoul. Each time, the Corporal got angry.

‘Did he say the first time he ate an apple was after he enlisted?’

It was not exactly new. He was a typical poor American.

This was only their second time on duty together, but the embarrassed Corporal had been eager to defend himself, so Gyeoul had heard a great deal about his childhood.

“There was no grocery store in the neighborhood where I grew up. The only restaurant was McDonald’s.”

A food desert. In a country where you basically had to drive anywhere you went, the violence of distance stood between poor people and fresh food.

Poor parents were also prone to indifference toward their children. Children raised between indifference and poverty were empty in many ways. Gyeoul’s past sympathized with the Corporal’s childhood.

“I enlisted because I hated being hungry. I think it was my seventeenth birthday. The woman who gave birth to me said, if you’re not going to school, go join the military. I said okay. If I was going anyway, I’d go to the Marines. They looked cool. It was insane. Now I think it was the best decision of my life, though.”

There were many cases like this. Legal child soldiers. America’s shameful face. Young heroes had fallen on countless battlefields. It was also one of the foundations that allowed Gyeoul to be respected.

The white Corporal, who struggled to finish his vegetables, was a darkness from a reconstructed past.

Gyeoul turned on the portable radio.

「Good deeds are good, but they cannot be forced.」

A voice he had grown used to over the past few days flowed out. It belonged to one of the Republican Party primary candidates. Listening to his passionate speech, Gyeoul looked at the execution site once more. The dead were buried beneath beating wings. A horrific wind burial. Black Guerrilla’s territory consisted of about two hundred ships, large and small. Executions were carried out at the highest bow. Fear was a tool of rule.

「Many people shed tears over the plight of refugees. But ask them. How much, in concrete terms, can they pay to help refugees? The amount they name will be the price of their conscience. I’ve spoken in person with many people who oppose me. Turns out, they were quite cheap. Just like me.」

Cheers and laughter burst from the speaker.

Gyeoul’s gaze followed one seagull. For some reason, it had broken away from the flock and was flying alone. The way it glided reminded him of Jonathan Livingston. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. An old book he had read with deep emotion as a child. Its story of transcending limits through constant effort was, literally, a beautiful dream. It had also been the boy’s hope.

Now, it was a faded story.

The beak of the bird before him was red.

On the radio, the red voice was still giving its speech.

「To be blunt, I’m a cheap and vulgar man. But there are things only a vulgar man can do. For example, cutting the refugee aid budget and strengthening relief for disaster refugees.」

Another round of fervent cheers exploded. He could hear only the sound, but the fanatical supporters were surely wearing shabby clothes. They would be watching their hope with impatient eyes.

An elderly person stood where the seagull came plunging down. Thud. It was the kind of impact you could almost hear just by watching. The audience from another world grew excited. A moment ago, they had been shouting that it was boring. Then again, these were people who had watched the execution ceremony with noisy enthusiasm too. Cruelty itself could be entertainment.

The elderly person, who had been flailing by the gunwale, struggled to rise. It was the movement of someone wasted by hunger. A wet stain spread over the old shirt. In the meantime, the seagull rose in an arc. Blood flowed from its freshly reddened beak and stained its white body.

「Of course, I’m not saying President MacMillan’s refugee policy is entirely wrong. Isn’t our hero, Lieutenant Han Gyeoul, proof of that?」

“...”

「But I ask you this. Who else is there? One hero cannot justify 52 billion dollars in spending! It would be better to spend one hundredth of that on the hero himself! I’m not joking. Last year, the best pitcher in Major League Baseball signed a 210 million dollar contract. Yet our boy hero receives the starting salary of an Army Lieutenant! Does that make sense? Are Lieutenant Han Gyeoul’s achievements worth less than a mere baseball player’s? No. I’m a fan of that player too, but I can answer firmly. Absolutely not! What about you? Let me hear you. What is your answer?」

No! No! No!

「Listen to your own voices! This is America’s cry!」

Waaah!

Amid the cheers, the seagull reached the peak of its ascent. It flipped over and began its second dive. It accelerated faster and faster. With the help of sensory correction, Gyeoul estimated its speed by eye at around 60 knots. The bird plunged at over 100 kilometers per hour and skimmed past the elderly person’s powerless struggle.

The cloudy sun was sinking. Fog crawled in from the horizon. After a moment of hesitation, Gyeoul picked up the gun before it was too late. Clack. The weapon kept at the post was a heavy anti-materiel rifle. Anti-materiel, meaning it was not made to shoot people. It was a weapon that could punch through an ordinary hull and pulverize the human body inside.

There was no other choice. It was too far for a pistol or rifle. His superhuman eyesight had no trouble seeing, but the distance estimated through 「Firearms Mastery」 was 1.2 kilometers.

Gyeoul pulled the sniper rifle close. He pressed the buttstock firmly against the front of his shoulder. He unfolded the bipod attached under the barrel and hooked it over the guard post railing. His cheek touched the reinforced polymer rest.

「The people who oppose me by bringing up Lieutenant Han Gyeoul are badly mistaken. Why? Because no one likes Lieutenant Han Gyeoul as much as I do! Damn it! I’m his first fan! I promise you here and now. If I become president, I will make sure war heroes receive proper treatment! Even the secretaries of the House and Senate earn 172,500 dollars a year, and the chief bodyguards who work every day protecting politicians who do nothing but eat also receive the same annual salary of 172,500 dollars. I simply cannot stand giving Lieutenant Han Gyeoul anything less than that!」

The primary candidate used Gyeoul’s name as much as he pleased. Gyeoul himself merely lowered the volume. It was distracting. The birds were shrieking so loudly that the noise remained the same anyway, but the words scattered his thoughts.

He adjusted his posture and aimed again.

The seagull was not a bird of prey. It was difficult for it to hunt a person. So its aggressive flight repeated like a pendulum. The width of its back-and-forth movement was gradually shrinking, though. As if measuring how much time the elderly person had left.

The radio’s shouting, reduced to a whisper, actually sounded even clearer.

「Shall I say it again? Goodwill that is realistically impossible is malice that kills everyone! In this situation, we cannot provide universal relief to nearly seven million refugees! We must reach out only to those who are truly qualified, only to those worth helping!」

Gyeoul read the wind from the elderly person’s clothes. The ragged shirt shook with the struggle and flapped in the wind. What let him tell the two apart was the sense added by correction.

Boom!

A gunshot on a completely different scale from a rifle burst out. Gyeoul watched the stained bird glide. Tiiing, ting, ting. By the time the shell casing, as thick as a finger, rolled across the floor of the post, the seagull finally exploded.

The elderly person, drenched in bird blood, flinched in terror. Scattered feathers fell like heavy snow and clung to the trembling body.

Clang, clang, clang. The sound of someone hurriedly kicking up the ladder.

“What happened?! Was it an enemy attack?!”

Corporal Wolf looked extremely tense. Gyeoul answered as if it were nothing.

“No. I only shot one seagull.”

The radio demanded a situation report. Gyeoul gave the same answer and received a generous amount of swearing. That side was Four Seas Gang territory. What would they have done if they mistook it for an attack from this side and fired back?

He could have asked for understanding, but Gyeoul did not feel like it. He simply said,

“I’m sorry.”

A little later, the fog advanced all the way to the south of the bay. Mixed with smoke from poorly refined oil, it turned even grayer. They spent a short while on duty wearing gas masks. Then visibility dropped so sharply that the guard post lost its meaning. The situation room ordered them back.

============================ Author’s Note ============================

#Seagulls

Some of you might find the part where seagulls attack people unconvincing, so I will post a YouTube link in the story settings.

But if possible, don’t watch it. It’s disgusting.

#570 Times

I hear the average salary of a minor league player is about 8 million won in Korean currency.

I hear the average salary of a major league player is about 4.58 billion won in Korean currency.

That is roughly a 570 times difference.

#Q&A

Q. Nesstor-nim: @Kh... healing story... ///blush/// The context is truly beautiful. This really needs to be a physical book, so you can brush every single letter with your fingertips and savor it properly.... The outside is a textbook for corrupting character, but the contents are a true fairy tale.

A. I started writing this with the idea of an adult fairy tale, but I can’t agree about the outside. A textbook for corrupting character? Say that again with a straight face.

Q. GreenTurtle-nim: @Can the control AI arbitrarily exert influence over Gyeoul’s game progress?

A. It can, within limits according to regulations. It cannot make probability judgments in Gyeoul’s favor. Not as a matter of ability, but as a matter of rules.

Q. PAM-nim: @Please compare brain activity when the natural process of human death occurs with brain activity during the natural death process in a floating-brain state.

A. That is too much to ask... The author is stupid... sob...

Q. Kxino-nim: @Author-nim! Where should I throw my remaining coupons? Should I throw them at The Wind and Star Cluster or at Ossuary?

A. O... Os... The Wind and Star Cluster.

Phew... I protected my childlike innocence...

Footnotes:

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